BLT floats offer to let Loft Artists stay another year

Elizabeth Kim

Updated 8:30 pm, Saturday, May 4, 2013

STAMFORD -- Following a standoff with the city's Zoning Board, Building and Land Technology has said it will offer the Loft Artists Association, a nonprofit arts group in the South End, the opportunity to remain in a building the developer owns on Canal Street for at least another year.

The company also announced that it would redevelop an existing 10,000-square-foot building on Atlantic Street in an attempt to satisfy a zoning requirement for cultural space.

The deal, which was announced during a meeting Monday night before the Zoning Board, would be contingent on the organization accepting a yet-to-be negotiated rent increase, moving its artists out of studios on the third floor and agreeing not to contest its departure at the end of the license agreement. The artists' collective has occupied two floors of a former industrial building that BLT owns at 845 Canal St. since 2007. It has been based in the South End for 35 years.

On Thursday, John Freeman, BLT's general counsel and spokesman, confirmed that the agreement was still pending, writing in an email, "(On) Monday, we offered them up to an additional year to come up with a plan for their future, whether it be at 845 Canal or elsewhere. The ball is in their court. They have not responded to this offer."

Lisa Cuscuna, the president of the Loft Artists, said the group's board would need a week to discuss and decide on the proposal.

BLT had originally asked the Loft Artists to move out as early as June 1 after its members indicated that they would not be able to meet a rent hike. Some of the artists who individually rent studio spaces had already been ordered to leave by May 1 so as to make room for an unspecified corporate tenant.

Under an informal agreement brokered by Mayor Dannel P. Malloy and Antares, Harbor Point's initial developer, the Loft Artists had been allowed to occupy roughly 13,000 square feet of space at significantly subsidized rents. Artists were charged $15 per square foot for studios ranging from 350 to 550 square feet. A 1,000-square-foot gallery costs the nonprofit $1 a month.

According to the Loft Artists, BLT had sought to raise the rent on all of its spaces to $24 a square foot.

BLT justified the increase by arguing that the subsidy was only intended to last five years. But the issue became magnified after the artists pointed to a zoning regulation that stipulates that the Harbor Point developer must provide at least 15,000 square feet of space for a cultural institution across its two redevelopment districts known as Harbor Point and Yale & Towne. It may also use property outside of those districts.

During the past several weeks, the Zoning Board has been pressing BLT to explain how it was planning to meet the requirement in the absence of the Loft Artists, although it is unclear whether the nonprofit group had ever been officially approved as meeting the requirement.

BLT initially maintained that its donation of land that went to the construction of the Waterside School, an admission-based independent school that serves students from pre-K to fifth grade regardless of family income, met the scope of the zoning regulation. That claim, however, was treated with skepticism by several board members as well as the public.

At meetings last month, Freeman had also questioned whether any zoning approval was required at all according to the way the regulation was written. However, the chairman of the board, Thomas Mills, dismissed that interpretation and threatened to impose a cease-and-desist order on BLT if it did not bring a proposal forward.

While Freeman on Monday argued that the school did have "public components," he said BLT intended to "work on a bigger picture cultural solution for the South End" by renovating a four-story residential building at 775 Atlantic St.

Its plans for the building may or may not include the Loft Artists, which has been pursuing options elsewhere. Freeman indicated that the developer was in talks with Creative Arts Workshop, a New Haven-based arts organization, to work with the company and possibly occupy the space.

However, reached on Thursday, Susan Smith, the executive director of Creative Arts Workshop, said that the discussions were preliminary. "They've been in contact, but we have not had any meetings," she said, adding that there had been a telephone conversation between a representative from BLT and the organization's program director.

Cuscuna said the Creative Arts Workshop were a "highly professional group" with established fundraising resources.

Nonetheless, she expressed disappointment that BLT did not approach the Loft Artists on an idea of offering art classes, something which Freeman touted as one of the program benefits of the Creative Arts Workshop.

"We would have thought they would have asked us," she said. "We have several teachers that are members."